


Territorial

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Ambushes & Sneak Attacks, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Awkward Conversations, Blood Loss, Blood and Torture, Energon, Epic Friendship, F/M, Firefighters, Fluff and Humor, Gang Violence, Hacking, Hugs, Interrogation, Knifeplay, LOUD music, Late Night Conversations, Major Character Injury, Night walk, Overprotective, Panic, Politics, Post-Mission, Pre-Earth Transformers, Research, Rough Kissing, Stress Relief, Take-Out, Walk Into A Bar, Worry, keeping secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5093387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Firestar thinks Inferno worries too much. Maybe it's Red Alert's paranoia rubbing off on him, maybe it's the stress of the job, but she thinks it's a bit much. There isn't any reason to get so overprotective...right?</p><p>Wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Territorial

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note: it's not mandatory but it might be fun to listen to "Fire and Fury" by Skillet before reading. It's very fitting of the pairing and this story :)

Firestar looked up with a tired smile as a shadow crept its way over her.

“Ya did well today, sweetspark,” Inferno stated as greeting, leaning down and bumping his chamfron against hers.

“Says the team leader, who happened to rescue the two sparklings I couldn’t reach,” Firestar replied, her smile turning slightly regretful as she draped her arms over his shoulders, holding him close to keep herself warm in the cool night air. “You were the one who saved the day.”

“Yeh, but _you_ saved _me_. If my armor had gotten much hotter, I might’ve caught fire,” he pointed out. “Good thing you nearly drowned me with the hose once I put the sparklings down, right?”

Firestar giggled, not bothering to correct him on the oversight of the fact that Cybertronians could only drown in oil. “So…what are you doing tonight?”

Inferno half-shrugged, causing her hand to slip from his shoulder to his upper arm. “Don’t know. I was thinkin’ of askin’ Red to go for a cube at the Slap Shot.”

Firestar’s eyebrows rose at the familiar tavern, only familiar by name. “Was?”

“He canceled,” Inferno explained, “said he had a lead on some city leader he thinks is crooked.”

Red Alert was always on the prowl for suspicious activity. It was almost as though he looked for it, though if the research skills he claimed to have were to be any proof, Firestar wouldn’t doubt it. “’Fern, sometimes I worry that sooner or later his research is going to get your friend in trouble,” she confessed, proving her words by glancing around to see if any nosy audials were listening in.

“If he left a scrap of what he’s researching open for someone to see, I’d worry,” Inferno countered. “He’s careful. Extremely. Y’know that, Fir’st.” Smoothly changing the subject, he repeated, “He canceled his time for me in favor of that, which leaves me to wonder what I might do with you.”

Firestar considered. “Let’s try the Slap Shot.” At Inferno’s doubtful look, she spread her arms wide, demanding, “What, you think I can’t hold my energon?”

“Nah, it’s not that. I just…” He trailed off, pursing his lips, and said in lower tones, “There’re a lot’ve mechs at the place. Mechs who like…making passes.” He scowled even at the thought, emphasizing, “An’ I’m not speakin’ of Lobbin’, dear.”

Firestar pressed a hand over her mouth—too late, as incredulous laughter burst out of her. “They like flirting. You could have just said that. But think about it: I’ve got a good, strong firemech to protect me. And if that doesn’t work, the firemech does have a good friend who’s excellent at finding dirt on an entirely metal planet.”

After a few minutes of slightly uncomfortable silence, Inferno relented with a single nod, offering his arm. Firestar grinned and took it, pleased that she’d convinced him. She had only told the lonely, pining mech she returned his interest a vorn ago, a mere blink in the optics of their people, and already he was so protective. In some ways she had already proven she could care for herself by standing by him in the field, but in everyday life it was a different story.

Occasionally there would be tension, an instance where he would go straight as a ramrod if someone told her to watch where she was going or acted put-out when she asked for something. Firestar always put it down to Red Alert rubbing off on Inferno, but there certainly wasn’t any way she could ask him to give up that friendship. Instead she worked on leading him out of his comfort zone—his ‘where I wish Firestar would be and stay’ zone. Somewhere very deep down she hoped that this outing would give him a chance to see that she was just as competent facing other Cybertronians as she was facing fires.

 _I have been doing it my whole life_ , she thought firmly, not for the first time, as the tavern came into sight, several blocks away and mounted on a ‘hill’ of sorts. Firestar squinted at the brightly-lit sign, rubbing an audial as an odd vibration tickled the circuits inside. Inferno noticed the motion and smiled sheepishly.

“That, sweetspark, is the music in the Slap Shot.”

“I can feel it from _here_?” she gasped, itching her audial again.

“Yep.” Inferno said nothing more and continued on, seeming set on the location now that she had convinced him. Firestar hummed contemplatively and hurried to catch up.

The music grew increasingly louder and the passerby grew fewer. Firestar suspected they didn’t want to shout in order to have a conversation on their nightly walk. Already she was feeling the need for her energon cube to soothe her hoarse intake valve. As they stopped some yards away, Inferno waved at someone he knew and then glanced at her.

“I can run inside and get somethin’, bring it out here!” he offered at a shout.

Firestar nodded, hollering, “Medium-grade with plutonium!”

Rewarding her with a thumbs-up, he echoed, “Potassium? Got it, but they don’t sell medical-grade. Gotta go with medium!”

Firestar opened her mouth to protest but he was already striding for the doors. Potassium it would be, then. She couldn’t help but smile; even the loss of her favorite metal wouldn’t take away from the evening. She retreated further back into the city, knowing he would understand wanting to spare her audials.

“Now that’s interesting,” a voice startled her. Firestar turned to find a femme standing a few steps behind her with folded arms and a smug little smile. When Firestar followed her gaze, she saw the other was studying Inferno’s back, disappearing into the flaring lights of the building.

“What?” Firestar prodded warily.

“Oh, I just separated from a useless article,” the femme replied with a shrug, her smirk widening. “Ugly, too. But _that_ might be a good catch; I’ve always liked red.”

Firestar was surprised to find her temper flaring. She tamped it down and tried to smile in return. “True, but I think he’s taken.”

The femme glanced at her as though just noticing her presence, lifting an eyebrow. “You jealous?”

The temper was starting to slip through the cracks between her fingers, which were working toward fists. “I’m not jealous,” Firestar stated flatly. “I’m territorial. Jealousy is wanting what isn’t yours; territorial is protecting what _is_ yours.”

It was quite satisfying to watch the femme stammer, lifting her hands placatingly and making a quick exit. _I guess it shouldn’t have been the_ mechs _Inferno was worried about_ , Firestar mused, shaking her helm in wonder.

It took a while for Inferno to make it out, causing Firestar to tease as he reached her, “I was about to call the rest of the team about issuing an evacuation of the building.”

“Ha-ha,” Inferno shot back, handing her a cube of medium-grade and taking a sip of his own, fortunate to have the cover of the music vibrations over his genuine chuckle.

It was taking them a while to get back to their sector of the city; despite the emptiness of the streets, they continued pausing so they could test how far the music could travel. On one of these stops, Inferno snapped his mouth shut mid-sentence.

Firestar frowned. “You alright?” Inferno held up a hand for silence, his gaze drifting away from her toward…what was he looking at? Firestar glanced over her shoulder and saw nothing.

“Fine,” he assured her, taking her arm instead of allowing her to take his. Firestar resigned herself to his overprotectiveness, letting him rush their nice walk for a block or two before pulling at him.

“Inferno, stop. Stop!” He was obviously reluctant but obeyed and she tightened her hold as she moved fully into his line of vision. “What are you doing? We were having a good time and then you just…did that.”

Inferno huffed, releasing all of his vents and shifting uneasily. “Thought I saw somethin’. Sorry if I annoyed you,” he muttered.

Firestar tilted her helm, smiling sadly. “I’m not annoyed, I’m disappointed. It’s time I was honest with you: I don’t know where you got this habit—maybe from Red, maybe from the job—but I’ve noticed you tend to worry a lot.”

It took her aback at how large Inferno’s responding flinch was, but she went on anyway, trying to ignore the (Primus, even right now!) worry, growing in his optics. “You worry too much. Especially when it comes to—”

Before she could even start forming the last word of her sentence, Inferno was somersaulting across the pavement, followed at a sprint by the huge mech who had punched him. Firestar’s mouth opened wide in disbelief and she half-turned in that direction, only to be wrenched off her feet by foreign arms locking around her.

“What do you know?!” a voice behind her shouted, the arms behind her tightening painfully as she cursed and thrashed in alarm. “What has he told you?!”

Firestar barely processed the question, prying at his grip on her and screaming. “Inferno! _Inferno!_ ”

The firemech was pinned underneath the second attacker, striking out where he could and scrabbling at the street, leaving streaks of energon where he was tearing up his fingers, trying to reach her. The other mech was merely a shadow to Firestar’s optics, painted mostly black so she could see only his shape and where particularly bright stars reflected on stripes of gold. Roaring wordlessly, he lifted Inferno up only to hurl him back down again.

Still the mech holding Firestar prisoner was shouting, his words a loop: “What do you know?! What do you know?!”

Firestar flailed, doubling over, her armor straining with adrenaline she couldn’t release, howling and blocking out everything the mech was saying. Her thoughts were fragmented, just an endless stream of helplessness: _Can’t help—not strong enough—Inferno, Inferno—can’t help—who—why—not strong enough!_ To her horror, a third foe appeared out of nowhere and lunged, assisting the Shadow in pinning Inferno’s frame to the street.

Pressing his knee into Inferno’s chest, over his spark chamber, the Shadow began repeating the same questions: “What have you been told? What information does he have?”

Inferno was completely deaf to him, arching his back and struggling to look at her until the Shadow’s assistant, over his helm, seized the white ‘winglets’ over his shoulders, bending, crushing into them, rewarded by a strangled cry of agony. The assailant cackled, pleased with this reaction, but a look from the Shadow silenced him.

“Don’t let him pass out,” the Shadow ordered. “Go for the fingers.”

To Inferno’s visible relief, the sensitive extensions were released and the torturer scrambled for his side, only to be hammered back by an inelegant blow from his prey. The Shadow readjusted, pressing his knee into Inferno’s elbow joint and seizing his hand, a vibroblade looming close enough to cause his joints to smoke.

“I’ve seen what you do,” he snarled. “A firemech is nothing without fingers. Tell me what you know! Now!”

Inferno froze, his optics overly bright as they reflected the vibroblade’s light. He glanced hurriedly at Firestar, the tilt of his helm allowing his cracked optic lens to spew coolant, and the Shadow read his processor.

“She goes free in exchange.”

“Don’t!” Firestar begged, hands outstretched futilely.

“ _Run!_ ” he bellowed in answer, giving Firestar her second wind. Before the mech holding her could begin to tighten his hold again, she kicked up and behind her, between his legs. Breaking free as he dropped, she did the exact opposite of Inferno’s order, screaming in increasingly high decibels and hurling herself at the Shadow, who easily used her smaller size to turn the force back on her—jamming her underneath the expanse of his right arm and forcing the wind out of her vents in a choked gasp—but he had dropped the vibroblade and had temporarily left Inferno unattended.

‘Temporarily’ was all the time he needed. His arms went around the Shadow’s throat, crushing into it, straining cables, and the addition of the mech he’d punched striking at his back did nothing but make Inferno more determined to hold on. Hauling the Shadow off of the femme, he turned and the assistant hesitated just before he accidentally struck his superior officer. Inferno shoved the Shadow at him, letting the bulky frame take him to the ground.

Firestar sat up, hugging her arms against her chest as Inferno seized the fallen vibroblade in one hand and her arm in the other, pulling her onto her feet and positioning her behind him.

“You don’t _touch_ her!” he barked, holding the blade out at them.

It was then that they noticed the sirens wailing, closer and closer in proximity. Firestar looked in their direction and saw the femme from earlier, waving to the officers and pointing at them and their attackers. Indescribable gratitude surged through Firestar at the sight. Primus bless that femme!

Inferno dropped the weapon as the officers, led by their friend Prowl, neared, whirling around and demanding in a panic, “Are you hurt? What did they do to you?”

Firestar opened her mouth to reply, but it fell open wider when she saw the energon—torrents of it flowing down Inferno’s abdomen.

“No!” she sobbed, clinging to him and pushing him to the ground, pressing her hands over his damaged armor.

“Fir’st—” he gasped.

“Don’t, _don’t_ , please,” she begged, putting all of her weight behind her hands, only for him to cough harshly and point off toward the sidewalk, where—

Where there was an empty cube.

“I sp-pilled my energon when I got punched,” Inferno explained hoarsely, clutching at her arm with one hand and still pointing insistently with the other. “I’m not—Firestar, sweetspark, that _hurts_ —”

“I’m sorry!” she wailed, flinging herself on top of him, not quite computing what he was saying and thinking it would be more fruitful if she simply put her entire frame on top of the leak. “I’m so sorry, I should have listened to you and just let you drag me home, I should’ve…”

Inferno sighed softly, sitting up and cradling her tightly, kissing her audial and the side of her face. “You should’ve _run_ ,” he whispered.

Firestar shuttered her optics against tears, burying her face in his chest. Nothing had changed…For once she was thankful.

**Author's Note:**

> In case it wasn't obvious, I hinted with the attackers' dialogue that they were being attacked because of Red Alert's research into the crooked politician. Guess it finally caught up with him. :/ Not gonna stop him from being paranoid though!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Please comment and tell me what you thought.


End file.
